Differential Steering Control Based on CNF and ADRC Techniques for Distributed-Drive Articulated Heavy Vehicles

This paper proposes a novel differential steering method (DSM) for distributed-drive articulated heavy vehicles (DAHVs) through differential control of wheel-side motors. The objective is to improve steering performance of DAHVs while negating the need for a conventional hydraulic steering method (HSM). A differential steering control framework that is combined with a composite nonlinear feedback (CNF) control strategy and active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) technique is proposed. Three main contributions are made in this paper: 1) A differential steering control method for DAHVs is proposed for the first time. It uses the yaw rate control of the front vehicle part to obtain a suitable direct yaw moment to guide the steering control of the rear vehicle part and achieve the vehicle steering process. This method can realize the collaborative control of a DAHV with two relatively independent vehicle parts. 2) The CNF control strategy is employed to design the nominal part of the differential steering controller to eliminates steady-state errors and guarantee transient steering performance of DAHV. 3) The ADRC technique is adopted to achieve disturbance estimation and compensation, so as to reduce the influence of disturbance on the differential steering process and improve the vehicle steering performance. The system's stability is proven by the Lyapunov approach. Moreover, a co-simulation model verified by field tests is utilized to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control approaches.